Rachel Swirksy!!!!!

Rachel Swirksy!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let me mention that the competition in Mandolin’s category this year was AWESOME. Paolo Bacigalupi, J. Kathleen Cheney, Ted Chiang, Geoffrey A. Landis, and Paul Park were the other nominees. That’s an amazing group to be in, and a hard, hard competition to win.

I cannot possibly describe how thrilling it was sitting with Rachel when the award was announced. (As John Scalzi was reading the nominees, Rachel leaned across to me and mouthed “I know I didn’t win.”) I really wish I had a camera and the means to upload a photo, because lemme tell you, Rachel’s Nebula is gorgeous. (Every individual Nebula Award is unique, not identical to any other). I’m sure we’ll get photos up eventually!

This is a big, big deal. Congratulations, Mandolin!

(Oh, and since people will wonder if I don’t mention it, I didn’t win in my category — Terry Pratchett did. Hard to complain about losing to Terry Pratchett!)

By the way, the person many people expected to win the best Novella Nebula this year was Ted Chiang. Mr.. Chiang, an utterly fantastic writer, has published only 12 stories, an incredible five (!) of which have been nominated for Nebula awards.

This year is the first time he’s been nominated for the Nebula Award and not won.

Rachel is also the first writer under 30 to win a Nebula award in 20 years. The previous writer under thirty to win a Nebula award was… Ted Chiang, in 1990.

Thanks, everyone! I really did not expect to win. I also did not expect to forget how to talk. :-P

It’s really amazing and hard to believe. The weekend was full of lots of squee, both before and after I won. It’s still really cool that I get to play in the same sandbox as these incredible writers; I feel like I’m a toddler being allowed to sit at the big kids’ table. It’s incomprehensible, and it’s awesome, and dude, did I mention awesome?